There are increasing calls among the Tottenham dressing room for Joe Rodon to see more action than he currently is, according to reports.
Spurs slumped to their third consecutive Premier League defeat with a 2-0 reverse against Wolves that saw Bruno Lage’s side overtake Antonio Conte’s side in the table in the process.
And it was largely Tottenham’s own doing too, with defensive mistakes playing a massive part in both goals, while the Lilywhites offered little in attack and were booed off by the 60,000 fans in attendance at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.
FULL-TIME Spurs 0-2 Wolves
Raul Jimenez and Leander Dendoncker’s goals earn Wolves their fourth away win in a row#TOTWOL pic.twitter.com/uZwOvDtj3v
— Premier League (@premierleague) February 13, 2022
Much of the focus was on the defensive performance, with Spurs now having conceded 8 goals in the last 3 games, and yet the option of Joe Rodon has glaringly been left on the bench.
Rodon in the cold?
One of the more curious choices across the tenures of both Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte’s regimes has been their reluctance to use defender Joe Rodon, especially within the context of defensive calamities offered up by Ben Davies and Davinson Sanchez on a more than an occasional basis.
Speaking after the loss, Antonio Conte was asked about the defender, and revealed that he didn’t feel he was good enough to play for Tottenham.
‘With Joe we are talking about a really good guy,’ the Italian said. ‘We are talking about a person whose commitment is very high every day…. but in this moment (pause)… yeah maybe I make a mistake to pick different players, maybe. Maybe.
‘But my evaluation is to try to put on the pitch the best players at the moment’, Conte continued. ‘If I didn’t do this then it means that maybe I did different considerations.’
However, there are some within the Tottenham dressing room itself who feel Rodon cannot do worse than current options. As per senior Tottenham writer Alasdair Gold:
‘football.london understands that some of the squad’s senior players have been pushing the claims of Rodon behind the scenes in recent weeks, with his ability to play in any of the three positions in a back three, having been a left-sided centre-back at Swansea.’
With Eric Dier due to return imminently, it remains unclear whether Rodon will get a chance to show Conte what he can do, but he cannot be worse than current options.
